


Here, At The End (We Begin Again)

by reliquiaen



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 09:16:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6073681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reliquiaen/pseuds/reliquiaen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The old world has ended and in the new one there is only ghosts. Maybe there is hope though. (aka Asuka has PTSD and Rei tries to make her feel better) Set P3I. For once, not an AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here, At The End (We Begin Again)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Xairathan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xairathan/gifts).



> Once more, brought to you by Xairathan. She is to blame 100% for this mostly-canon-compliant-probably fic. Multiple POV changes + one time skip.

She has two options.

One: Sit on the beach with Shinji. He’s catatonic though, and wasn’t very good company even before he turned into a listless zombie.

Two: Go exploring.

Asuka spends about five seconds staring at Shinji’s almost lifeless form, sprawled out in the orange sands with the red tide lapping at his heels. Then she spins on the spot and stalks off towards the ruins. It’ll probably still be quiet and boring and not particularly cheerful, but literally anything is better than Shinji right now.

She kicks at the sand with her toes, sending it skidding away from her in plumes. There’s very little of interest on the beach, flotsam washed up with the waves, rubble from the buildings. That it’s landed so far away speaks to the violence that had been brought down on Tokyo Three, really. The sand spills over into the rubble, carried by the wind maybe, carpeting swathes of concrete in orange.

She stubs her toe on one protruding hunk of pavement and nearly pitches forward too far to save herself. Thankfully she manages to catch herself on the remains of what she thinks might once have been a van. Asuka pauses, staring at the crumpled hunk of steel, dented and warped beyond identification let alone repair. Absently, she wonders what would happen if its owner rose up out of the waters.

Then she turns and stalks off. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters in this place.

Nothing looks the same either. As she stumbles through the ruins, climbing over collapsed buildings and weaving through mazes of twisted rebar, sometimes she thinks she recognises something. That corner of exposed white could be the gymnasium from their school. And that mangled mess of handrail could just as well be the one from outside Misato’s apartment.

But it’s not. It never is. So she keeps moving.

And the wind, so stale and still smelling of salt somehow, it whirls through after her. It catches a newspaper from before she’d even arrived in Tokyo Three and blows it away. But she startles anyway, not realising what it is until she’s turned fully, heart pounding as she catches the glimpse of pale movement. For a second her brain tells her it’s another of the Mass Produced Evas.

That’s nonsense. And once she’s recognised the paper she knows this. It’s too small to be an Eva, it doesn’t move with the same purpose. Relief floods through her and she sags against a half-crumbled wall. She rubs a hand gently over her eyepatch, silently blaming it for her mistake. It’s unusual – the sensation of being half blind – confusing her, making things into shapes they’re not and throwing her balance off.

Asuka sighs and shoves away from the wall, intent on finding… something. She takes the first few steps with her usual ferocity, determination and anger. But soon her skewed depth perception has her tripping over joins in the pavement and bumping into objects that seemed much further away. She grits her teeth and slows her pace.

She might have come back out of the ocean but that didn’t mean she couldn’t die again. For a second, Asuka wondered if she _could_ die here. If she ended impaled on one of those long metal cables or falling from the top of that half-collapsed structure off in the distance. What if she couldn’t find food? Would she stay dead?

She shook that from her head. Instead, she took slower, more cautious steps into the ruins. Asuka didn’t know where she was going, what she was looking for. But the half-building ahead of her seemed like as good a spot as any in this strange wasteland.

Asuka runs one hand through her hair, the other she stuffs in the pocket of her coat just to do _something_ with it. Grumbling to herself, she steps around a hunk of asphalt with a manhole cover miraculously still embedded in it and keeps going.

Slowly. It’s slow going. But it’s better than not doing anything.

 

* * *

 

She’s standing in a doorway. There’s no wall around the frame and the door has been snapped across the middle so it’s really only _half_ a door. And the bottom hangs crooked on its hinge, jammed between the ground and a pile of what she can only presume was the wall the door used to be a part of.

She doesn’t know how she got here.

She turns.

Behind her, through a long stretch of crumbled buildings and broken road, she can see the ocean. It’s orange, just like she’d expected. The sky above is streaked in that angry red colour and over the top of one stump of a structure, she can just see a curve of white; Lilith’s head still sinking slowly below the surface.

Blinking slowly, she turns again, staring through the inexplicable doorway once more. She steps through it. And nothing happens.

She doesn’t know if she necessarily expected something to happen. It just seemed so much like one of those things. Symbolic things, she thinks maybe they’re called. She casts one glance over her shoulder at the frame and then pushes further into the ruins.

Many buildings still stand at least for the first few floors. Looking around at them is like staring at a mouthful of jagged concrete teeth. All of them with their ragged peaks and mounds of rubble like gums. This is what the world gets, she thinks, for biting off more than it can chew. Though she isn’t sure if she means the Angels or SEELE or NERV or who she’s thinking of really, just that clearly they were out of their depth in their endeavours.

Still, one building stands taller than the rest, still chipped like all the other teeth, but probably five storeys higher all the same. She heads towards it. Not with any real purpose, many streets are impassable so her path loops widely around before meandering back. It’s not like she has anywhere to be, so it doesn’t matter how long it takes.

Above her, the sky remains the same. The sun hangs there, a lightbulb more than a celestial body now. She wonders if it will set at any point, or if it will just… stay there, forever, caught in some strange universal pause. She can’t tell if it’s moved since she… woke up. It must have. Surely.

She keeps moving, any progress the sun is making is probably not relevant to anything anyway. Truly, she’s not even sure that _going_ somewhere matters either. But she feels… compelled to, like she needs this. She came back for a reason. She’s _looking_ for something.

However, moving through the ruins is no easy feat. Even though she knows she’s making progress, she can’t help but feel like she’s walking in circles. She spends so long navigating around the rubble that she becomes certain the sun is moving; inching slowly across the bloodstained sky. Not the way it used to, but it’s trying. Maybe this is the world healing.

After all that’s happened, she has to believe the world can heal.

Eventually, her long winding path spits her out in a courtyard. It’s mostly clear of debris, though there are cracks everywhere in the pavement and some sections are tilted higher or lower than the rest as if an earthquake had rippled through it. To her left, more rubble clogs the streets, but it’s a straight shot to that taller tooth she’d noticed earlier. The building with the chipped top.

She stops there, blinking around. For a moment she waits, though she isn’t sure what for exactly. After spending her whole life a puppet on Gendo’s strings, she finally feels free, and yet there is still a tugging in the pit of her stomach as though she has unfinished business.

How that is possible here, of all places, she isn’t sure.

So she waits.

Though really, she isn’t waiting long.

 

* * *

 

Asuka rounds the corner and nearly walks headlong into a long panel of concrete that looks like it might once have been the ceiling in an office judging from the light fixings hanging from one end. She throws a hand out to stop herself and redirect her momentum. Still, she just about tips over again when there’s nothing there for her foot to land on. The ground falls away in a step that really shouldn’t be there. Thankfully, when she staggers, she manages to catch herself, knee jarring uncomfortably as her weight hits it.

As she rights herself, she huffs, blowing hair out of her face. Just typical. She’s been here for like… not even a day judging by how the sun’s moved, and she’s already over it. Almost she’s tempted to turn right back around and walk into the sea.

Instead she collapses onto the step – a hunk of bitumen that no longer lined up with the rest of the cracked road – and sighs. Her hair falls into her face again but she’s too tired to be bothered brushing it aside again. Her elbows meet her knees and she stars down at the black of the road, wondering how deep the cracks go. They may even reach the centre of the earth. She wonders if it’s as much of a mess as the outside.

There’s movement in her periphery then, a quick flash of _something_. She’s spent her whole day jumping at the slightest movements, so this time she grits her teeth, determined not to scare again. She won’t look up, she _won’t_. It’s probably just another can or something.

But then there’s white stretching out and her one eye tells her that it’s close. She scrambles to her feet, heart suddenly pounding double time in her ears. With one arm, she lashes out; hoping to catch it, but all she hits is air.

Her vision swims and all she sees white and a blur of red. A Mass Produced Eva? Here? It reaches for her, all lanky white and red mouth, red eyes. Asuka kicks out, pushing herself away as fast as she can. There’s a whining sound coming from somewhere and it takes a moment before it clicks that she’s the one keening. And there are tears in her eyes.

“Get away from me,” she cries, her voice a lot more strident than she might expect.

But she can still feel hands on her throat, teeth clamping down around her shoulder, claws ripping into her chest and turning her inside out. She can feel their hands on her, ripping her apart, destroying her utterly. And she’s panicking. Her breath comes quick in her throat but she can’t get enough air into her lungs. Her hands scuff across the bitumen and she’s sure she’s torn skin off her palms even through her plugsuit.

“Leave me alone!”

Asuka’s shoulders bump up into something and she realises she’s trapped. There’s nowhere to go and the MPE is still watching her, reaching for her. Trying to kill her again. She’s still crying.

But then there’s a pause, she can feel it. And the MPE lowers its arm. Asuka scrubs a hand across her face, trying to clear the tears, feeling the tell-tale sting in her hand. She’s definitely grazed her palm. Slowly, the MPE takes a step back, and that’s when Asuka realises.

This is not an MPE. They don’t stop, don’t give up. They broke her with cold efficiency; they didn’t care for her screams. And yet this one looks… concerned.

She wipes her face again, clearing her vision a little more. Attempting to calm herself down in the face of something… impossible. She sucks in a deep breath, hoping to quieten her still thudding heart.

“You’re shaking,” the not-MPE notes.

Asuka recognises the soft voice.

“Wonder girl?”

 

* * *

 

Asuka has herself pressed as close to the rubble as she can get, knees brought to her chest, face watery from tears. She looks a right mess. Rei doesn’t blame her, the world is messy.

They remain quiet after Asuka speaks. Rei thinks her question is fairly self-explanatory. Asuka looks terrified though and Rei decides they shouldn’t stay. As she takes a slow step towards Asuka, she realises she no longer feels as if she has unfinished business, no longer feels like a ghost haunting the empty world.

That could be because of Asuka’s presence; she is no longer alone. And yet… she pauses, shuffling back a step. Asuka had told her to leave.

So she backs up, waiting for the other girl to say something. She doesn’t, just watches her with fear written large in her eyes. Rei takes another step away. She turns to leave.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

Rei shifts, looking back. Asuka is still huddled on the ground, watching her warily. But she clearly spoke and her eyes don’t seem so… distant.

For a while they’re silent again. Then Rei takes that step towards Asuka, extending a hand. She means it to be a gesture of assistance, but Asuka shies away.

“Don’t touch me,” she grumbles. Instead, she pushes herself up the broken wall until she’s on her feet. She teeters a little but stays upright.

“We can’t stay here,” Rei points out. She doesn’t want to see Asuka fall, but she can’t get close enough to help. She settles for keeping a close eye.

Asuka steadies herself and steps away from her. “I’m going to that building,” she says stiffly. It’s the taller one she indicates with a jerk of her chin, the one Rei had been looking at earlier.

Rei only nods and follows.

Asuka walks with purpose, but she doesn’t seem to be as coordinated as Rei remembers. Just as brusque and proud though. She thinks it’s a good sign that Asuka hasn’t lost herself, that she’s so strong. It would be so easy to disappear into the water.

It turns out, the distance between the courtyard and the broken building is further than Rei had expected. Every time Asuka stumbles, Rei reaches out, trying to steady her. But Asuka snaps away. Every time. Refusing to let Rei touch her. Her face scrunches up in concentration the longer they walk.

And the sun slinks across the sky above them, painfully slowly, as if it doesn’t want to be noticed as it descends. It slides behind clouds, casting a grey haze over the world. But it’s worse when it’s obscured by the blood caught in the stratosphere. Then it shines through – like stained glass windows in a church – painting everything a nauseating red. Everything becomes surreal, glossy and muted, familiar shapes become strange.

Asuka maintains her silence throughout it all. Though when the world tints scarlet the set of her jaw changes – tightening as if she’s defying the universe – as if making it through this is some personal challenge and she’ll be damned if she loses. Rei watches her face carefully, alternating between that and keeping an eye on where they’re stepping. Asuka, for her part, seems content to completely ignore Rei’s existence.

In fact, if Rei stopped and left, she doubts Asuka would even notice.

For a second she considers it. Then they round another corner, still trying to reach that building. And suddenly she’s glad she didn’t leave.

 

* * *

 

Asuka doesn’t have time to make a sound. One second there’s solid ground beneath her and the next there’s not. All she can see is yawning blackness stretching away to nothing. This hole, she’s sure, reaches the centre of the world.

She doesn’t fall though. Something stops her.

It takes a moment before she realises it’s Rei.

There are hands on her. Her skin burns as she realises, but she doesn’t start panicking. These ones are gentle, they hold no malice. And they’re currently saving her from plummeting into the darkness.

Rei pulls her back, away from the edge and then her hands disappear. When she looks over, Rei is standing a few steps from her, eyes watching her carefully. They both turn, eyes drawn to the pit. Asuka is, for a long minute, confused by it. Then it clicks.

“It’s one of the buildings…” she murmurs, not necessarily to anyone. The realisation simply needed to be voiced. The buildings that disappear into the geo-front have tubes just like this. Only apparently, some of the buildings had fallen through, leaving nothing but big empty chasms in their wake.

Asuka kicks a lump of concrete over the edge, listening to the clatters it makes as it bangs against the now misshapen sides. When the sounds fade, she looks back up. There’s no way they can get through this way.

Rei lifts her arm, obviously reaching the same conclusion. For the second time, Asuka’s brain interprets the white of her plugsuit as being an MPE and she stumbles back a pace automatically. Rei glances at her, concerned but doesn’t move towards her. She does let her arm fall back to her side, though.

For a beat, they stare at each other, Asuka wondering why her pale hair and red eyes have to remind her so viscerally of the MPEs. Rei is impassive as always. When the beat is over, Rei sort of… deflates. Her brows draw together very slowly, gently, the same way Rei does everything. And then her weight shifts and her body turns away and Asuka can see she’s reached a conclusion and this is her following through with it.

In the moment it takes her to realise Rei is leaving she sees everything pan out. She sees the red city, the broken buildings, the shattered shoreline, the vast and cluttered emptiness. Through it all Asuka is alone and somehow that weighs more than people do. She can’t take that by herself, it would crush her, destroy her in a way different to and yet somehow agonisingly similar to how the MPEs did. She can already feel the hole in her stomach opening to mirror the one beside her, consuming everything she is until there is nothing left.

Without thought, she lurches forward. Rei seems more surprised when fingers snatch at her wrist than Asuka is herself. Rei is warm, even through the fabric of her plugsuit, Asuka can feel that. And she looks at her with such a softly profound expression.

“Please,” Asuka mutters. “Don’t leave me alone.”

Rei nods, her hand turning over until her fingers find Asuka’s and she can wind them together. She tugs – in the same direction she’d been indicating before – and Asuka lets herself be guided away from the hole. They go around it, instead. And finally reach the building that had been their destination all day.

Its tattered top towers above them, the bottom two floors have been squashed together. Obviously, the rest of the building had collapsed on top, leaving a mound of rubble and the rest of the structure rose out of it. They had to climb up the slight hill to reach any kind of shelter and still, much of what they found was broken somehow.

Asuka didn’t feel safe, standing in what once was perhaps the fourth floor, the rest of the building above her. It could come down on top of them any moment. Rei’s hand in hers pulled her towards one corner. The floor of storey above theirs had fallen in, making a ramp and forming a sort of pyramid. From it, she could see out the window (missing their glass) and over the rest of Tokyo Three. Or what was left of it anyway.

It wasn’t the best view, it was honestly sort of macabre, but she couldn’t look away. Rei left her there, fingers slipping apart, as she went off to rummage in the wreckage. Asuka could only stare through the empty window.

The sun has at long last reached the western horizon. Asuka thinks it’s been three days since it set. But she watches it now, disappearing slowly, a burning mimicry of Lilth’s head in the ocean.

 

* * *

 

While Rei digs through the building – it looks like the remnants of an office – Asuka stands at the window. The whole time. Even when she returns to her side, Asuka seems oblivious to her presence. It’s not until she strikes a fire with the matches she found in a toppled desk that Asuka remembers her.

And then she spins, arms coming up to defend against something that isn’t there and she just about falls through the window. Rei staggers across the fire to grab Asuka by the front of her jacket and keep her from falling. Once Asuka regains her balance, she glances down at Rei’s hand, still holding tight to the fabric.

Rei lets go, averting her eyes and sinking down beside the flames. For a long while, Asuka doesn’t join her, but Rei can feel her eyes burning on her back. Eventually, she feels something on her shoulders and looks around, shocked. Asuka has wrapped her coat around Rei, a little frown creasing her brow, it smooths out even as Rei watches.

Asuka stands, waiting for something. So Rei slides her arms into the jacket and pulls the zip upwards. It smells like Asuka. After another moment, Asuka nods, the gesture decidedly decisive and she folds herself onto the ground across from Rei.

“Why?” Rei asks quietly.

Walls fly up across Asuka’s face, guarded just like that. She doesn’t speak.

So Rei murmurs, “Thank you,” into the silence.

Then there’s nothing but the snapping of the fire between them. Asuka stares at the embers. Rei stares at Asuka.

“The white…” Asuka eventually sighs. “Your plugsuit. I kept thinking you were an MPE.” _But now you’re wearing my red jacket_. The words went unsaid, but Rei heard them all the same. She couldn’t be mistaken for an MPE anymore.

They don’t speak again. And when the moon rises – red and ghastly like the sun – Asuka lies down and falls to sleep. Rei leans against the floor-ramp and closes her eyes.

She supposes she must sleep, because when she opens her eyes again the moon is somewhere else in the sky. A vague sense of dread ebbs slowly from her chest, the only indication she’d been troubled while she slept. Asuka, on the other hand, is muttering in her sleep, nonsense mostly, or at least Rei can’t understand her.

When Asuka starts tossing Rei sits up, her mutters change tempo, her breathing is ragged. A nightmare. Rei presses a hand against Asuka’s shoulder and she sits upright with a jolt, throwing a fist out. Only narrowly does Rei avoid ending with a black eye.

“Breathe,” she whispers. “It’s only a dream. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

Asuka’s eyes find her in the dark, glittering purple in the light of the moon. She holds Rei’s gaze until her breathing has returned to normal. When Rei shifts to move away, she realises Asuka’s fingers are wound into a white knuckled grip on the jacket.

“Stay.” Asuka’s voice is so soft Rei nearly doesn’t hear her. But it still carries that tone of command; she knows what she wants and she’ll have it. So Rei doesn’t argue.

Instead of crossing back to the other side of the now spent fire, she slumps down beside Asuka. Only once she’s settled does Asuka release the coat.

Rei doesn’t close her eyes again though. She’s not sure she could get back to sleep even if she tried. And she can tell from her breathing that Asuka lays awake with her. The night seems to drag as long as the day did.

“Why did you hate me?”

The words sound so fragile in the still air. Rei turns her head to look at Asuka and finds herself being examined. Neither of them speaks for a long second.

“I didn’t hate you,” Rei finally replies.

Asuka makes a sound that might be a scoff. “You were so aloof. So cold. So devoid of emotion.”

“You were angry,” Rei points out. “Always so fierce and competitive. Intimidating.”

Asuka’s eyes flick between Rei’s. “So you what? Decided not to even bother trying to be nice?”

“Didn’t you?”

That takes a moment to register, but when it does, Asuka’s eyes soften noticeably. “I suppose.” She takes a long moment to continue. “I wanted to be better than you.”

“You are,” Rei tells her like it should be obvious.

Asuka rolls her eyes. “I don’t think so.”

“You have… aspirations,” Rei exhales. “You _want_ things.”

“Have you never wanted something, Ayanami?”

Rei feels a thrill of surprise ripple through her and her eyes dart between Asuka’s. “Only once,” she admits slowly. “It’s why I came back.”

Asuka’s features are full of confusion. Obviously she’s not sure what Rei means, and that’s probably for the best. Neither of them speaks, however. Not for a long time. Even as Rei watches, Asuka’s eyes droop, sliding closed. It takes a while, but her breathing evens out indicating that she’s asleep.

Rei rolls onto her back, staring up through the hole in the ceiling at the next floor up. She watches a loose cable dangling from the roof as it sways in the gentle breeze until eventually she too falls back to sleep.

 

*

 

In the morning, Asuka isn’t there.

Rei scrambles to her feet and looks around but there’s no sign of her. She thinks perhaps Asuka has finally just… left. It wouldn’t be too surprising really.

At least, she thinks that until she hears screaming.

Not a high pitched theatrical scream either, the sort that comes from deep in the stomach and rips through the throat. Rei is running before she even decides to follow the sound. Dread makes her blood run icy cold, but adrenaline lends her speed.

Even as she winds through the office, vaults a desk and races through the ruins outside, her brain supplies her with possible scenarios. There can’t be many things left in the world that would make Asuka scream like that. Though the possibility that she’d fallen down one of those big holes remained.

Rei hopes she hasn’t fallen into a hole. Above her, the sky rumbles ominously and she shudders. She doesn’t believe in portents, but that can’t be good.

She skids around a corner and spots her. Asuka has her back against a slab of concrete protruding at an awkward angle from the pavement. Behind her is a big hulking mess of grey and white that Rei can’t identify for a few seconds.

When she recognises it as the frozen remains of a Mass Produced Eva, she hurries over to Asuka. There are tears on her face and she’s trembling again, knees pulled up to her chest and her nose tucked into her arms folded across the top. Carefully, Rei crouches and lifts a hand to brush tears from Asuka’s cheek.

She starts but doesn’t pull away. “I’m fine.”

“You were gone,” Rei murmurs. “I felt…”

“You _felt_ ,” the words are cynical, flat and disbelieving. “Have you ever felt, Ayanami?”

Rei bobs her head. “When you’re around.”

That seems to shock Asuka out of whatever horrible place she’s found herself. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m just…” Beneath Rei’s hand, Asuka shivers.

“It’s okay, Asuka,” she mutters. “You’re safe.”

She laughs; it’s bitter. “Are we? Here? At the end of the world?”

Rei sits down beside her, leaning against the rubble with their shoulders touching. “Yes, here. The world will heal, Asuka.”

Slowly, Asuka looks over at her. “How can you be so hopeful? After everything that’s happened?”

“We’re still here,” she answers without hesitation. “That’s cause for hope.”

They sit for a long time together. It’s completely silent save for the occasional rumble in the sky above them. There’s very little red flickering across the sky for the sun to filter through. Instead, it’s just grey with cloud. Rei isn’t sure if she preferred the colour over this dismal grey, but it seems to feel… better somehow. Cleaner, maybe.

“I can’t sit here,” Asuka whispers some time later. “Not with that _thing_ lying there.”

“It’s dead, Asuka,” Rei reminds her. “It can’t hurt you anymore.”

She glances at Rei like she’s some kind of stupid. “That doesn’t mean I want to let it loom over me like this.”

Rei nods, accepting the truth of that, and stands. This time, when she holds a hand out to help Asuka up, she takes it. Although Asuka makes a point of not looking back at the MPE sprawled out in the rubble behind them and she winds her fingers tightly with Rei’s as they walk away. They walk for a while, not going back to the building where they spent the night, but neither with a destination in mind.

And a few hours later when Rei looks up after another dangerous rumbling from the heavens and says, “It’s going to rain,” the wonder in her voice is matched only by the shock on Asuka’s face. Sure, the sky had filled in with those dark clouds but the idea of rain seems so… unnatural in this strange version of their world. Still, Asuka must believe her, because she tugs on their still joined hands until they are underneath the roof of the nearest still-standing structure.

At Rei’s questioning look, Asuka sighs. “I don’t need to let that stuff soak me through.”

Rain had always fallen with a somewhat pinkish hue, courtesy of the red ocean. But Rei suspects Asuka’s sudden aversion to precipitation has its roots somewhere else. She doesn’t mention anything else on the subject though. She simply retrieves the box of matches from her coat pocket and sets about starting a fire.

No sooner has she established a modest flame on a pile of what might have once been a wooden dining chair than the heavens open up. This time, there are no Gates of Guf, though, it is just rain. Asuka slumps to the ground by the fire, not wanting to have anything to do with the rain she supposes; her eyes track Rei as she moves towards the exit all the same.

For a while, Rei stands by the door watching the rain patter to the ruins outside and Asuka watches her. After ten minutes or so, puddles have formed and Rei smiles. When she turns back to Asuka, the other girl seems honestly concerned by her expression.

“Ayanami?” she asks slowly. “What…?”

Rei simply crosses the space and gently pulls Asuka to her feet. “Trust me,” she says softly.

Asuka’s face scrunches up unhappily, but she does allow Rei to tug her outside. Her hands tighten on Rei’s fingers as they step out into the rain. It soaks into the jacket Rei is wearing, but slides off the shoulders of Asuka’s plugsuit.

Rei is still smiling, waiting for Asuka to notice what had caught her attention. When the realisation strikes her, it’s obvious in the way her face changes. Asuka’s mouth falls open slowly, features relaxing and she squeezes Rei’s hands. Her eyes are smiling again as she looks around at the rain as it falls.

“It’s… clear…” Asuka breathes. She lets go of one of Rei’s hands to hold her out, palm up, watching as the liquid collects in the hollow of her palm.

“The world will heal, Asuka,” Rei repeats. “We’ll heal too.”

The next thing Rei knows, Asuka has tugged her closer by their one joined hand and her other lands on her hip. Then Asuka’s mouth folds over hers, softly; it’s warm in the chill of the rain but Rei no longer registers the water. Rei’s hand rises of its own accord to curl around Asuka’s cheek. They stay there for a moment longer and then Asuka leans away. She’s smiling so widely though and Rei knows it’s okay. Even her eyes are bright with laughter. _They look like the rain._

It isn’t until Asuka actually starts laughing that she realises that last little thought she said aloud. “Who knew you were such an optimist, Rei,” Asuka says around her laughter.

This time, it’s Rei who tugs Asuka close enough to kiss her. Less cautiously this time, with more _need_. And Asuka smiles against her, arms winding around her neck until her fingers are in Rei’s hair.

Around them the rain keeps falling.


End file.
